Revelation Rebuttal M O T Satan No 9

Now, uh, the next thing he talks about is the demise of Satan. He says Satan's demise is directly connected to the defeat, or rather, he says, uh, the Bible doesn't talk about the demise of Satan. Well, here's something, Satan's demise. Now Paul said, the God of peace, watch this one. The God of peace shall crush Satan under your feet shortly, Romans 16 and verse 20. Hmm. I wonder this shortly mean shortly, why don't you call up Satan and say, okay, I'm coming shortly to crush you and see how long that takes. The apostle Paul said, um, the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet, writing to the Corinthians in the first century shortly, see these guys don't believe shortly means shortly. They don't mean that they don't believe that hand means near because it won't fit their theories. And so they have to throw out these time statements. They have to make mockery of them, but Satan's demise is directly connected to the defeat of the man of lawlessness who was in the temple of God in the first century. Now let's see if that is the case. Let's go to second Thessalonians chapter two and read a few verses starting at verse one. The Bible says, now I beseech you brethren by the coming of the Lord, which is the parousia and our gathering together to him that you are not to be soon shaken in mind or trouble either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us as though the day of Christ had come. That's very important because if you're a King James reader, the text will say as though the key, as though the day of Christ is at hand. And that's an incorrect translation. Just go look it up. The word is not in goose, which is the normal word for near, like in revelation one three, but it is the word in this day Kim or in this day mine, which, or in this day me, whichever is correct pronunciation, which means to already be present. And every time it's used in the new Testament, it's used as a contrast between things to come and things present used about eight times in the new Testament. One that I can think of right off the bat, uh, Galatians one for the present evil age. Another one is Romans eight, I think verse 38 that, uh, when he says neither things present nor things to come. So it's a contrast between what already is. Now here's the deal. The Thessalonians in as early as 51 AD believed that the coming of the Lord had already occurred. Now that has to tell you a lot. If you are thinking, it has to tell you, they didn't have a concept of a literal Jesus coming out of the sky on a literal cloud. It has to tell you, they didn't believe the graves were going to open up. It has to tell you that they didn't believe the sun and moon literally were going to fall out of the sky. They didn't believe that they were going to be ratcheted up off the earth. Yet they believe that the coming of the Lord, not a rapture for a thousand years. They couldn't believe that a thousand years was going to intervene before the coming of the Lord, all of those things. And when Paul wrote to correct their concept, he never addressed the nature of what they believed. He never said, Oh, you got it all wrong. You know, Jesus is supposed to literally come out of the sky and you're going to see him with your eyeball. He never said anything like that. Don't you know, it has to be a thousand years between. No, he never said anything like that. The only thing he addressed in the text was the time that something would occur. And he said, these two events have to happen before Jesus comes. Just two things. He says the falling away first, the great apostasy and that the man of sin had to be revealed. Now let's talk about this a moment. Let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the falling away comes first. And the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. Notice who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he sits as God. Now watch where he sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Where was he sitting in the temple? What temple? The temple that was in Jerusalem at that time. Now that's where he was in the temple. And he says, do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things and now you know what is restraining. There was something restraining him at the time that Paul wrote this. So the man of sin was already there that he may be revealed in his own time for the mystery of lawlessness. Watch is already at work. Only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Now watch verse eight and then the lawless one after this restrainer who was restraining in the first century after he was taken out of the way, it says, and then the lawless one will be revealed. But where was he in the temple? So how are you going to reveal him? He's got to be revealed in the temple. But the temple doesn't exist anymore today. So how are you going to reveal somebody in the temple that doesn't exist? This demonstrates it was first century. And then this lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. Now this word brightness is the word epiphania. It means the manifestation of a hidden deity. And the word coming is the word Parasea. So with the epiphania of his Parasea, with the manifestation of this divine being, in other words, that is Christ, the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders. And so the destruction of the man of sin is directly connected with the defeat of Satan. He's destroyed in terms of the man of sin. And therefore, that was all a first century phenomenon. They don't have a temple in which to fulfill their eschatological construct. It's not there. They're excited because, you know, they're talking about moving the capital of Jerusalem to from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And they're, I mean, their lips are salivating, you know, their tongue, their mouth, they're just salivating. Oh, we got it. We're going to get this temple. See, they are desperate to get a temple so they can try to fit these things into their eschatological paradigm and it's not going to work because the temple that was spoken of was the one that existed in the first century and it's gone, gone, gone and will never come back again. And if your eschatology can't fit that temple, it can't fit the scriptures, period. You're done. And so he tries to squeeze his rapture doctrine in and I've shown him before that there is no intermediate coming because Acts 321 says the heavens would retain Christ until the restoration of all things spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the age began. And then he starts with Moses and goes all the way through to the last of the prophets saying all of them from Samuel and as many as follow after have likewise foretold of these days, not days, 2000 years in the future, but of these days, it's harmonious, ladies and gentlemen, all the way through.